I was very taken with tapas on my first and so far only visit to Spain. That you could stuff yourself with all manner of tasty small dishes - as a mere prelude to dinner proper - struck me as an approach to catering the Brits would do well to emulate. Since then, tapas restaurants have sprung up all over the place, the majority run by chains. Of these, La Tasca is perhaps the best-known. I have been a big fan of the Oxford branch since it opened in the Oxford Castle development. They won my allegiance on the rain-lashed launch night by dishing out lashings of sangria and paella to the sodden crowds.

In common with most customers, I suspect, I do not treat tapas as a series of snacky starters but the whole meal. I enjoyed a particularly fine one there early last week - my enjoyment made the greater because all the food was half price as a consequence of my presenting a coupon printed in the Daily Telegraph. (I notice on my bill, incidentally that the £17.85 saving is printed as "Guardian food". Presumably the Grauniad had an offer going as well.) Highlights of the meal (and I intend in this piece to try to avoid Spanish words) were chicken breast cooked in white wine and garlic; monkfish marinated in white wine, orange, garlic and coriander; casserole of lamb with wine, potatoes, mustard and peppercorn; and lentil and butterbean casserole in a cherry tomato sauce. Rosemarie was particularly pleased with her pud, a warm tart filled with a mixture of pecan nuts and oranges, served with organic vanilla ice cream.

Service was friendly and polite, as has always been the case on our visits here. The only drawback to La Tasca that I can see is that it closes too early - at least at the start of the week. The night before our visit, when I had tried to book a table at 9.30pm I was told it would probably be closed by then as it was a Monday. On the Tuesday, we saw a number of parties being turned away from about 9.30pm onwards, with the explanation that "the kitchen has closed". This hardly seems satisfactory to me, killing at a stroke any prospect of post-theatre trade.

There is no problem on this count with Oxford's other Tapas establishment, La Plaza, in Little Clarendon Street, which is shortly to be renaming itself Al-Andalus - indeed, may already have done so. Closing time for the kitchen here is 11pm, or at least it was on the night we visited, after the premiere of The Oxford Murders at the Odeon in Magdalen Street. Our choice of dining venue had already been made, incidentally, when I realised its appropriateness, in that the film is a product of the Spanish movie industry.

Apart from downing a couple of glasses of sherry there shortly after its opening six years ago, I had never been across the threshold. We were pleasantly surprised by the appealing decor, the warmth of the welcome and the quality of the food. The new owner, Mel Tanyeri, explained that everything was cooked on the premises, hinting darkly that this was not always the case elsewhere.

I enjoyed a glass of bone-dry manzanilla while we made our menu choices, leaving Rosemarie to broach the bottle of fruity (and modestly priced) Otonal Blanco Rioja. A few nibbles earlier in the evening at the Randolph Hotel had kept hunger pangs at bay, but we still thought six tapas selections would be about right for us, Before the arrival of these - in dribs and drabs, as one would wish - I set about a bowl of marinated olives. There was danger in these, I felt, in that the first dozen or so were pitted, and then I suddenly encountered one that was not. Fortunately, I had not bitten hard into it, thereby perhaps saving myself from costly dental work. Olives, I think, should either be pitted or not - preferably not, since the pitting can leave fragments of stone behind.

You can see from the list on the right the selection of dishes we ordered. My choices (and the ones I ate most of) were the chickpeas in spinach, which had overtones of paprika and garlic and a delicious topping of crisply cooked garlic slices; grilled chunks of pork cooked on skewers with cumin, paprika, and garlic (one of the night's specials) and chicken and Serrano ham croquettes, which would have been a bit boring if it hadn't been for the Catalan-style tomato sauce that came with the bread.

I was very pleased, though, to be allowed a taste of Rosemarie's selections. The anchovies in vinegar and olive oil were rather fresher-tasting than those we'd had two nights earlier at La Tasca. The layers of potato, oven baked with Serrano ham and goat's cheese, was almost a meal in itself. But best came last, we both thought, with the dish of scrambled eggs - lovely and sloppy as they should be - with pieces of asparagus and peeled prawns stirred into them. The £3.90 charged seemed very modest.

Mention of eggs reminds me of the Spanish taste for all manner of (often rather unpleasant) eggy puddings. Here Rosemarie ordered one of the nice ones - a classic cream caramel - while I was offered (and gleefully accepted) a delicious orange ice cream courtesy of the boss.